Reservation - a practice towards deterioration of Nation

                                        

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               http://educatererindia.com/index.php/2015/10/06/reformer-vol-2-part-i-02102015/

Sep 19, 1990, Desh Bandhu College, New Delhi, students were protesting against something called ‘Mandal Commission and while this protest one student name Rajiv Goswami had set himself on fire in front of the administration and other students. Though no one will support this type of activity but this help the student movement to gain momentum as it was the beginning of a big & uncontrolled student revolt, and all these things was against ‘Mandal Commission’.

            

    So the question arises that what is this Mandal Commission? What was its impact on Indian society & politics? Why it agitated the student to do protest? What the government was doing when all these things was happening?

To know about all these thing let us focus on few important issues of that time. In 1990, Mr. V. P. Singh was the prime minister and his government had approved the suggestions of Mandal Commission and implemented the ‘RESERVATION SYSTEM’ to help some sub section of society to get some development. The major thing in this reservation system was 27 % reservation to OBCs for government jobs.

               

So, again the question comes that whether the reservation in getting government job was the reason of the agitation and protest or it was the social mentality of Indian upper class that were not willing to give anything to the category of people at the lower section of the society. According to V P Singh, the agitation gain fuel because of media as the media had glorified the issue and gave it much importance.

V P Singh who came to power by speaking against corruption and became a hero for Indians soon turned into villain among Indian youths as he had taken a very important decision of implementation the suggestion of Mandal Commission. This decision was very important because it did not change only the Indian politics but also the thinking of Indian society forever. And turned different communities of India into vote bank and widened the existing gap between different sections of society.    

              

  To understand why this decision was taken, we have to look at happening of one year back when V P Singh became the prime minister of India. Actually that time he was one of the most popular leader but in the racer of prime minister, two other players like DEVI LAL and CHANDRASHEKHAR was also there. Knowing that these two candidates do not have required support, V P Singh left the decision over them only to decide. Chandrashekhar was not in the favor of V P Singh, so he extended his support to Devil Lal but Devi Lal also knew that the wind is blowing towards whom and in a high voltage drama of which Chandrashekhar was not aware, V P Singh became the prime minister of India.

2^nd Dec 1989, Mr. Singh came into power and oppositions had had told that he became prime minister by doing fraud. Commenting upon this V P Singh used a very typical Hindi term that ‘Dhokhe se baney ya dhakke se bane, ya apne se baney ya public se baney, ban to gaye, ab logo ko jo analyse karna hai krte rahe’. But soon Mr. Singh started facing problems from internal sources of party including Devi Lal because of high interference of Arun Nehru. Though Mr. Singh do not follow Arun Nehru advice as it is but Arun Nehru pretend and advertise it like the way that everything is going on as per his advice. Devi Lal got confused and thought that Arun Nehru is trying to over shadow him and Mr. Singh is overlooking him. The second reason for the widening of his gap was OM PRAKASH CHUTHALA. Mr. Chauthala was the son of Devi Lal. Devi Lal because of high influence made Chauthala the CM of Haryana. At that time Chauthala was not an MLA, so he fought election and tried all unfair means to win the election and when this news flashed,   V P Singh asked him to resign. Devi Lal was not happy with decision and soon he asked to Chauthala to fight again in election and again he won and Deli make all arrangement to make him CM again as soon as possible.

This act of Devi Lal was considered against the act of Mr. Singh and Arun Nehru got a chance to get over the situation and to show the protest against Devi Lal, he resigned with few of his minister. Even the parties like BJP and others which were giving political support to V P government were also not happy with this act of Devi Lal and showed their protest. To cop up with the situation, V P Singh announced his resignation.  With his proposal it appeared like that the government is in serious political problem, but actually it was a plan to get rid of Devi Lal and finally Chauthala had to leave the CM chair.

To respond this Devi Lal sent a letter to Mr. Singh, complaining about Arun Nehru, that he is one of the culprits of Boforce Issues but that was found fake and Devi Lal was suspended from cabinet. When political ups and downs was happening V P Singh was aware that the government will fall anytime as his government was coalition government with nuclear material  because the government was running with the support of those two parties which are opposite in their ideology, BJP & Left.

While the things going, Mr. Singh had planned to play his master stroke and in the cabinet meeting of the Aug 6, 1990, he told to cabinet members to discuss about implementation of Mandal Commission. Though cabinet members were not aware about these agenda and even they told to prime minister about their u unknowingness but Mr. Singh insisted to discuss over the issue. Actually he wanted to implement Mandal Commission as soon as possible.

          

      Here a question comes that actually what had happened that forced to V P Singh to implement Mandal Commission immediately? One reason was a rally which was supposed to be called on Aug 9, 1990 by Devi Lal to show protest against Mr.  Singh government. According to   V P Singh, if this happens, it would be a great threat for the government. To distract the crowd from coming to rally, it was decided to launch Mandal Commission as soon as V P Singh possible.

            Now again,  what was this ‘Mandal Commission’?

Actually this Mandal Commission was formed in 1979 by Janta Party government headed by Morar Ji Desai. The commission was headed by Ex CM of Bihar, B. Prasad Mandal with 6 members for the purpose to recognize those categories of society who were not getting proper opportunities or were backwards. To provide them equal opportunities form them this commission had made caste as the basis of eligibility  made the report on the basis of caste and the suggested 27% reservation  for the OBC and other SC/ ST and submitted the report but at that time  Morar Ji Desai government. The report kept in government offices for a decade. After 10 years, on the basis of this report, VP Singh had declared for implementation of the reservation system and while announcing about these he said that ‘this reservations is for socially & literally backward’.

              

  It was a big decision in the sense it was going to help a large section or say majority of the sections for long term as around 52 % of Indian population belong the categories eligible for reservation. But the question was that is this reservation follows India’s basic principle of constitution which that everyone has the right to equality? If it is so then like others why the general category people didn’t get some share of reservation. Are the people in general category are rich, wealthy, educated and prosperous? If not, then is there provisions made for them? If not, why? Are they not the citizen of India? Had they not vote in every election to choose the government?

Though all major parties was not in the favor of reservation that time but no one dare to protest against it openly at initial stage because they are fearful that if they protest against the reservation they may lose the votes of the people getting benefit from reservation.  The major drawback of this reservation system was that it was based on Mandal commission Report which was prepared 10 years back in 1980s and even at that time it was prepared on the basis of census report of 1931. The question arisen was that is it justified to make a law for the people in 1990 on the basis of a report of 1931. In 60 years. India had seen many geographical, social, economical, cultural, political and other changes.

             

   Even before implementation of this reservation, already 22 % reservation was these category people was there. So now it actually meant the total of 49% reservation for them. Though it was considered as worst decision, no party dared speak openly against this and V P Singh gain popularity among one section and became villain for other. But anyhow he virtually divided the country into two sections. Even in Parliament Rajiv Gandhi had compared this act as equal to British Policy of Divide & Rule. Though parties think tank were busy in planning the next step , the students were preparing from long time thought that it’s a planned murder of their career in government services and they were not ready to digest the decision, and turned up on roads and started showing protest and at this stage BJ started demanding that the basis of reservation should be economic and educational status rather than caste because as per BJP , rather than removing gap between caste it will leads to intense casteism for coming 50 years. But no one was ready to listen anything and soon the student’s protest had taken its unexpected wildest form when Rajiv Goswami of Desh Bandhu college had had committed suicide on Sep 19, 1990 to show his protest against the reservation system.

           

     From political point of view, it was the most problematic phase for the BJP and even people started saying that BJP is now between MANDAL (backward) and KAMANDAL (forward). BJP leaders were afraid that if they openly oppose the reservation system, they may loose backward vote and if they support it, they may lose their traditional forward vote. But anyway they had to go for election and then the people will ask them about their stand about reservation. So again the BJP decided to go its old and secured agenda of RAM MANDIR and L K Advaani decided to have a ‘PAD YATRA’ from Somnath to Ayodhya but on the suggestion of Pramod Mahajan, this “Pad Yatra’ was converted to ‘Rath Yatra’ to gain the support of all ? Hindus from all categories. This yatra began on 25 Sep 1990 and was about to finish on 30 Oct 1990 in Ayodhya.

This Rath Yatra is also considered as one of the reason for the fall of VP Government as at the time VP government was in power because of BJP support, and when this Rath Yatra began, all local parties because of their internal state level politics, pressurized V P Singh to take action to stop this Rath Yatra. Seeing no other option VP Singh made up his mind to do political murder of his own government and ordered to arrest L K Advaani. L K Advaani was arrested when the Rath Yatra was crossing Bihar and Lalu Prasad, the then CM took all credit of stopping Rath Yatra. With this arrest of Advaani, BJ had withdrawn their support from the government and government fall down.

 During this thing, Supreme Court had order to keep stay over reservation system. Students thought that this will be ray of hope for them. At this Chandrashekhar came into power but soon Supreme Court had approved the reservation system and said to exclude creamy – layer from reservation. After 16 years, a new decision from Supreme Court came that given reservation in admission in Educational Institutions also. Yes, it is true that Reservation was the much needed thing that time for those categories of people   but now the situation had changed a lot. It is proof of empowerment of the reservation category people that from last 25 years Bihar had seen any CM from general category. Shall not we revise this reservation policy and modify it as per the need of the hour??

This is the era of young generation, a generation that wants change in everything, a generation that believes on fact, believe on questioning and reasoning rather than accepting anything as it is? So why we are silent over this issue? I request the people from all background to come together and demand for the change and ask to give reservation only to those now who actually need? Shall Ram Vilas Paswan, Nitish Kumar, Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati etc need reservation?

If we start counting we do not found even 1000 government officials whose child are studying in government schools but they want to get son admission government colleges. Why this discrepancy in thinking does still exist? Its time stand together for a better change.

Next issue is about KARGIL WAR.